Friends, Romans, and Countrymen
by Le Seigneur des Mouches
Summary: A rather farcial look at the true causes of the events of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.


(_Scene: Cassius admits Brutus into his private chambers and closes the door behind him.)_

**Cassius: **Most noble Brutus, wherefore dost thou come?

**Brutus: **Belovéd Cassius, we come to ask

Whether in all thy schemes thou'st made a plan

To spread rhymed poetry throughout the land

For we wish to speak freely, if we can.

**Cassius: **O Brutus! Art thy head feeling quite well?

For thou shouldst know this just as well as I

We speak blank verse, blank verse! It never rhymes.

**Brutus: **But O Cassius! Cassius! (Might we call thee "Cassie"?

And might we drop the imperial "we"

And call thee by the intimate "you"?)

Grow you not tired of this verse, this fluff?

This iambic, pentametric, Shakespearean stuff?

The fault is not in our stars, but our tongues

Yes, our tongues! Those pink devils.

I'll take it no more! I've had enough.

**Cassius: (**_dreamily) _Why, 'tis true!

I feel free

Liberated, truly

As a crocodile

Endowed with the wings

of a butterfly

(_hastily recovering his composure) _But Brutus! Dost thou not know it is crime?

By Caesar's law, to speak in aught but his?

Surely they poetry's not worth thy neck!

**Brutus: **And therein lies the wherefore of my visit

For we must—

**Cassius: **Wait! What's that I hear?

(_KNOCKING on the chamber door)_

**Brutus: **Curse ill fate! This portent, rapping, tapping at your chamber door

Nay, I fear it, may I hear it, rapping here, nevermore

Prithee do not answer it, I beg of thee—

**Cassius: **Wherefore? Wherefore?

Why shall not I open this door?

So, pray cease your complaints, therefore

I shall – by Jove! I speak in rhyme!

It seems, dear Brutus, your tongue's beaten mine

(_Cassius opens chamber door, and MARC ANTONY enters)_

'Tis Antony! What is thy mission here?

**Brutus: (**_fiercely) _To better sell his soul to Caesar's hand!

This wyrm hast surely come to spy on us

To catch us in an act of blasphemy

That he might cut the tongues from our false lips.

**Antony: **(_whimpering_) Have pity on this honest soul of mine!

Thou shall not—

**Cassius:** Come now! Art the charges true?

Thou shall give us the honest truth—

**Brutus:** No lies!

**Antony: **Truly, good sirs, I come not to take tongues

For I have quite enough of those in stock

But there is something else I do not have

My friends, Romans, countrymen—

**Brutus: **To the point!

**Antony: **Lend me your ears!

**Cassius: **Our ears?

**Antony: **Your ears, I say.

You see, good sirs, I have a plan to sell

Recycled and reusable old parts

Not of machines but of quite real humans

And so my flaccid purse shall therefore swell

**Brutus: **He's mad!

**Antony: **I, mad?

**Cassius: **Yes, you, quite mad.

**Antony: **Brutus, durst thou listen to my pleas?

I take thee for an honorable man

As are you both, both honorable men

Should either one of thee lend me thy ears

I'll compensate thee with this shining gold.

**Brutus: **You fool! You dunce! You worse than stupid man!

Organ trafficking's not the noble path

The issue that's at stake is our free speech

To rhyme, or not to rhyme, that's the question

That we must ask the bottom of our… tongue

For I shall not participate in this,

The blank verse that so mocks my every word.

**Antony: **Poets die many times before their deaths

The unrhymed never taste of death but once

Brutus! Cassius! Pray heed my words!

There is a bone within the ears of men

Which, taken with scissors, is made of gold

With such fair treasure we are now afloat!

And we must harvest ears while we still may

Or risk losing the gold to wax buildup

**Cassius: **Brutus is right: the point is not the gold

But rather, 'tis the freedom of our speech

And herewith I shall speak blank verse no more.

**Antony: **So be it! Cleopatra will listen.

And Caesar, though your ears be deaf to me.

(_Antony storms out of the chamber, clutching his ears and mumbling to himself.)_

**Brutus: **Ah! Now, free are we to speak

As we would, by the dictates of our hearts

Instead of Caesar's harsh restrictive law

Which binds us to the shackles of blank verse.

**Cassius: **I feel free once more, and I think…

**Brutus: **Yes, you think?

**Cassius: **Only one thing may be done

And just that one thing: only one!

In order to end his harsh rule

We must kill Old Julie, that fool.

**Brutus: **Kill Caesar? My friend, that's a laborious task

And Caesar, he was close to me

Yet your vision is keen, and I perceive there to be

No solution save that which you see

**Cassius: **It's agreed? We kill Caesar? But what of the mob?

We must have excuses for Rome.

**Brutus: **No fear, we'll say for the "general" good

Of this empire they call home.

(_Brutus and Cassius embrace and exit the chamber.)_


End file.
